Getting out of bed, Jeanette walked over to a window.
Her room, which she occupied alone, was at the back of the big house. The view showed the carefully tended kitchen garden, the stables at some distance away, and beyond the long sweep of their own fields. One could catch a dim outline of a distant rim of hills.
The window was open. Thrusting out her head, Jeanette drew in a deep breath of the sweet morning air.
No one else on the place was yet astir.
Yawning, she glanced toward her bed and then outside again. Which called to her most? She was sleepy and yet felt she would be unable to sleep.
A ride before breakfast perhaps would put her in a better frame of mind to meet the new day. She dressed quickly in an old riding suit of blue corduroy.
Outside her window there was a long tangle of heavy vines supported by a lattice and twisting about the posts of the porch.
Wishing no one in the house to know of her departure, Jeanette crawled out of her window and clambered carefully down to the porch railing. This was not her first descent. By her own efforts the vines had been arranged to form a kind of natural stepladder.
Outdoors she hurried off to the stables. Here she saddled one of the ranch ponies. Her own had been too wearied by the long journey the day before.
She was about to ride away when she observed some one else slipping out of the house alone. She looked not a great deal older at this distance than Lina.